


January Cold

by thatclutzsarahh



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst AF, Character Death, Death, F/M, Gen, I cried while writing this, Tear Jerker, Unrequited Love, sad death, tbh it's sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-13
Updated: 2016-01-13
Packaged: 2018-05-13 17:59:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,427
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5711785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thatclutzsarahh/pseuds/thatclutzsarahh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She, the stunning Anthea, whose long tan fingers wrap tight around the next bouquet of flowers from the sorrowed hands that extend from the door, held at an awkward length in an attempt to say 'sorry for you loss even if we don't know you well...'</p>
            </blockquote>





	January Cold

January is a hard month. 

It is the time when the ground is the coldest, the ice the thickest, and the mind the darkest. depression sky rockets through this time, or so say experts, with sterile clipboards and clinical eyes- glazed over from the warmth of the holidays ending, still feasting on leftovers that sit ripening in the fridge. The financial year anew-the body is the most weary in the bleak, dry midwinter, bones creaking each step, a great weight in the soul. No one escapes it.

Not even she.

She, the beautiful Anthea, with her eyes a soft pale blue, a pastel wave lapping the shore, whose hard, jaunty body has grown soft edges from meals eaten and stagnant activity. She, the stunning Anthea, whose long tan fingers wrap tight around the next bouquet of flowers from the hands that extend from the doorbell, with eyes dry but dampened flesh, the winter air nipping at the rosy cheeks, brightened by the layer of make up she coats as a mask today. 

There are condolences, sure, but there are none more sorry than those dressed in black, with eyes that tell her lies, whose arms curl around her frame in an attempt at dismayed hope. There would be some kind of future, surely, but it would be a long while off. Time heals wounds that should be there, but is she allowed to mourn this way for something lost that wasn’t supposed to be hers? Those in the black, who hold her small flowers-those who knew would say that she is allowed this.

The thing about being his mistress is that there will always be the stigma of something taboo attached to her grieving. She ruined no marriages like this, she wrecked no lives-she was this single man’s only consort-a confidant of the utmost bizzare kind and in a strange, sickening way, the guardian angel that was to keep him safe. She falls only short when her fingers emerge from his wreckage bloodied but not broken-bloodied with his shirt and the bits of him that remain.

To the rest of the world Anthea was Mycroft’s loyal pet dog, a lap servant with far too much access. 

To Mycroft Holmes she was the warm embrace at night, when he could not find sleep save for in the warm, plush arms of a woman who wanted nothing but this from him.

To Anthea, herself, she was the rest of the pieces that didn’t go up in flames with the IED, the few bits of his shirt, warm, bloodied palms, maybe some bits of hair that clung to her dress.

It was weeks before she came to realize the full extent of the London Terror attacks. The monitors told her she was alive but only just-missing the Holy Ghost’s fingers by centimeters. They tell her she had stumbled from the mess of the car, brains spilling from her head, zombie like. They leave out the part where she repeats her desperate bellows for Mycroft, this part she remembers only later, in the dark of her lonely, quiet home. They tell her that she was not supposed to live. They tell her she is awake weeks before her recovery should’ve allowed.

They tell her Mycroft Holmes did not make it-dead upon explosion, pieces left.

Which is why they bring her flowers in January, the bitter month, those with the long black gloves, whose smiles tell her she is okay to mourn. They are his family, dressed and suited in dark colors, like they knew the great secret Mycroft had harbored with her-they call her mistress with their eyes, mother with their hands, wife with their body. Each of the brothers, the lot of them, fall into a chair in the house, cold and numb.

It’s not that Sherlock and the family are here for her-she should not allow herself the foolish indulgence that this is true. It is that they want answers for questions they still have, an interrogation of the only person who will have them-they stare eagerly at Anthea, a petri dish of solutions, ready for her dissection. 

But Anthea does not have answers.

Instead she sits down across from the black gowned family, taking time to gather her thoughts. She is still frail from impact, bones are healing and bruises are fading, still there, quietly, but healing none the less. They are patient, they understand, Sherlock’s sympathy is only mirrored from the others-but he is doing his best with patience. Anthea has the answers.

She tells them instead of what she knew of Mycroft. She tells them the nights that he would call her, trying desperately to not sound like he needed her, but in the end pleaded with guttural tones for her to come over. She tells them of how her arms fit perfectly around his neck, her nose was the right shape for the edge of his head and how, when they were apart, he would write her small letters, small thoughts of his, a journal for her to see. Anthea pulls the small letters from the drawer in the room, explains that the house is bursting with them, from seam to seam-he had expressed he had liked to write to her, because she would listen without judgement.

She tells them that his touch was never rough. That his hands were always warm but never hot, how he would brush her hair for her when she was tired, of how he could pleat it into the most beautiful pleat-straight down her back, tied in the end with the edges of her hair. Anthea tells him how she had fitted his suits for him, tied his ties, was gentle company for a lonely, aging man. She help to curb his drinking, to entice his movements. He was a great dancer, she says to them, he was skilled and passionate about it.

Anthea would recall as much about the IED as she could. She would tell them of the way his hand had brushed hers just moments before. She would tell them that he had gotten her something nice, but that she would never get it, because second later would be his last. She tells them that the last thing she remembers is smiling fondly at Mycroft Holmes, and that she can only hope that is what he sees last, too.

Anthea does not recall anymore after that. 

Her chair holds now, a slumped, saddened form, whose eyes cast down onto bruised knees, circled and kissed by the healed edges of scabs, scars not threatening to pop through. The air isn’t thick, it is just there, weighted, like two large steel balls waiting to swing back and strike further-as if there were any fire left in the lot of them. She doubts there is much of a spark in the room, the dismal, deep quiet is signal enough that there isn’t a question to be hand. They knew all they could-and Sherlock could have his answers. 

So it is Sherlock the first to admit, that Mycroft had died knowing he was loved, not by many, but by one. 

They look at her like a Mistress, but hold their hands open for her like family. They are poised to call her mother, but they bite their tongues instead. Sherlock stands-and so does the rest of them. Her funeral invitation is silent, as if, as if they could threaten not inviting her. The woman was important to all of them-but to Mycroft she was the most important. This knowledge is what they leave on.

She cries not long after they are gone. 

Her heart is broken, what else would it be? 

And the tears don’t stop, not for hours, not for days. 

Her heart is broken, as simple and as complex as that.

Mycroft leaves her his house and all his properties. He leaves her his collection of papers, books. He leaves her his job, only by default. 

In the middle of the front row she sits, wearing black on black on black-dressed for work and dressed for this. She notices only how small the attendance is when she stabs up to kiss the top of his coffin goodbye, fingers running over the smoothed wood, unsteady but wanting so bad to be-the rows of chairs are empty. A great, long silence. It is only her and his family. 

His only friend. His only confidant. And on the right nights, his only lover.

She offers the coffin one long, lasting look as it disappears from sight. 

Into the hard, frozen ground.


End file.
